battery removed from ipod touch, will not complete recovery

the battery died a long time ago on my ipod touch 32gb, think it is 1st or 2nd gen, when i plug the ipod in it still lights up and works but asks me to plug it into itunes, when i do that itunes says i need to restore it but when i start the restore process the apple logo reappears on the ipod then it dies and i get an error message from itunes, usually unknown error 1604 or 1603, sometimes 1611. all i want to do is leave my ipod plugged into a dock to play music without the ipod having a battery will this work, surely there must be a way if it's still showing the screen when plugged in